“So you’re going to get the Idol of Boreas and give it to some Griffon to make them the next king or queen?” Twilight asked.

“Pretty much. I have a list of candidates I still need to vet. That griffon from earlier, Gabrilla?

“Gabby.” Twilight reminded me.

I nodded. “Sure, Gabby. She was one of the griffons someone recommended to me. I was a moth hiding on her mailbag all day, trying to get a read on her personality. I’m going to have to do something similar for the other candidates. I’m not going to give the Idol to some idiot who’s going to piss off the public enough to cause a rebellion in a year. I’m also going to be investigating the major players who might oppose whoever I install. Digging up whatever skeletons they might have in their closets to blackmail them with.”

“You don’t need to do that. We’re trying to think up a different solution, remember? You shouldn’t have to resort to that.” Twilight assured me.

“I’ll be covering my bases anyway, just in case you two can’t think of another solution. That way I won’t have to waste even more time on it later if I have to fall back on my original plan after all.” I told the two of them.

Twilight sighed. “At least you’re giving us a chance…”

“Yeah, I am…” I just hoped I wasn’t going to regret this. “Anyway, this is probably going to take a while. So let’s go find a hotel to stay in. I’m sure there has to be at least one that’s in livable condition. It’ll probably be stupidly expensive but better than staying somewhere liable to collapse on top of us while we sleep. Or infested with rats and bed bugs.”

Rainbow Dash shuddered. “Yeah, I’d rather spend the extra bits rather than deal with that.”

Wanting to try and maintain my image as much as possible I transformed into a pony. A black unicorn with a white mane and tail, wearing my spidersilk armor and saddle bags. At least I could use magic in this form, since it had a horn. It was still changeling magic, but no one should really be able to tell the difference.

The three of us walked through the partially dilapidated city and asked around for the best hotel in the city. Eventually someone bothered to answer us, in exchange for five bits, and directed us to a hotel. It wasn’t the fanciest hotel ever, and the prices were indeed exorbitant for what it was, but it wasn’t falling apart and the rooms were clean. Apparently it was where most visitors from Equestria stayed while in Griffonstone. So it was up to Equestrian standards for health and safety, which was a relief as apparently Equestria had pretty high standards in that regard.

I went in later than them in my changeling form and took a separate room. I wanted it to look as coincidental as possible. I didn’t want to reinforce the image that I was on Equestria’s leash anymore than those two had when they went around town asking about me.

Once we had our rooms I locked up my excess bits in a chest at the foot of my bed that I’d been given individual keys too. I assumed Twilight and Rainbow Dash did the same. Then I snuck into the room Twilight and Rainbow Dash were sharing by crawling under the door in the form of a spider.

I changed back to my human form and Rainbow fell out of her bed in surprise. “Gah! Dang it, Skitter! A little warning next time, huh?!”

“What was I supposed to do? Descend from the ceiling by a web in front of your face before transforming? I was a spider. I can’t exactly talk in that form.” I stated.

Rainbow grumbled in annoyance as she got back up on her bed.

“Anyway, I’m just here to let you two know unless you absolutely need my help with this I’ll be out until maybe midnight, give or take. I’m going to be investigating the other candidates on my list. I’ll be keeping myself busy every day unless you actively need my input. So I won’t be here to help you brainstorm ideas for how to solve this without going with my plan.” I told them.

Twilight nodded. “Alright. Rainbow and I are going to see if we can find anything that might help us in the library.”

I shrugged. “Fine by me. Just don’t go around talking about me. Pretend you two are just friends on vacation or something. The less involved Equestria is with me and this whole situation in the public consciousness the better.”

I could feel the frustration from Rainbow Dash and by the look on her face I could tell she wanted to ask why, but she stayed silent. Mercifully she wasn’t pressing me to explain why.

Twilight nodded. “We’ll try our best. You can count on us. You’ll see.”

“I hope I can…” I said before walking over to the window and opening it. Then I turned into a dragonfly and flew out to continue gathering information.

Twilight watched Taylor fly out the window, nervously. There was a lot riding on her figuring out a peaceful solution to this situation. If she couldn’t, Taylor was going to kill a bunch of Griffons to ensure no one would oppose whoever she installed upon the throne. There were lives riding on this. There had been lives on the line in other situations as well, such as the Crystal Empire and the Changeling Invasion. But this was the first time it had ever been quite so… direct. Taylor explicitly told her and Rainbow that she was going to assassinate griffons to make sure the civil war would never happen or would end within a month if it did start. And this was important enough to her to cut ties with Twilight and the others for the sake of her hive, so they wouldn’t be able to convince her to stop. So the pressure to find that peaceful solution was immense.

“This sucks.” Rainbow stated, leaning back on her bed. “This whole situation is terrible. Friends shouldn’t have to keep secrets from each other. And this whole civil war thing? I told you Griffons are horrible. I mean, it doesn’t excuse Skitter planning to assassinate some of them, obviously. But the fact she thinks she’ll have to just to stop them from killing each other in a civil war just shows how awful they are. Celestia’s sun, I hate this!”

Twilight sighed. “I don’t like it either. I agree this is an awful situation and I wish it were different. But remember what Taylor said earlier. She’s the queen of a budding hive. An international figure. She was right with what she said before. I don’t expect Princess Celestia to tell me everything she does so we can’t expect Taylor to either. We’re just going to have to accept that there's some things she just can’t tell us.”

Rainbow was silent for a moment before groaning in frustration. “Fiiine… Maybe you’re right… Speaking of which, what the hay, Twilight? No wonder she doesn’t trust us! You were seriously spying on Taylor for Celestia?”

Twilight winced, guilt shooting through her. “I didn’t mean to! I just… never thought of it that way… I was just trying to help… I made a mistake… I should have realized Taylor would be upset about it. That it was a violation of her privacy. At the very least I should have talked to her about it… But it’s too late now… All I can do is try not to make the same mistake in the future and try to earn back some trust.”

Rainbow huffed and sat back up. “Yeah… Anyway, you have any idea how we’re going to do this? Solve this whole situation peacefully, I mean. ‘Cause I got nothin’.”

Twilight shook her head. “No. I don’t… I was sort of hoping your experience with Griffons might be helpful in that regard.”

Rainbow rolled her eyes. “One Griffon. Gilda. Who’s a huge jerk. I’m not exactly some egghead who knows everything about Griffons, Twi.”

“Then let’s head to the library and try to read up on Griffon culture and customs. We’re not going to figure anything out sitting here.” Twilight stated.

“If you say so… I still don’t get why Skitter cares so much about the Griffons, specifically. The Dragons were jerks too, at least those teenagers were and that one that decided to sleep in the mountains that one time, but at least they have a functioning society. She’d probably be better off trying to get them on her side. Plus they’d probably be a lot better help against Queen Chrysalis and her hive.” Rainbow Dash grumbled, getting up off her bed.

“I’ll be completely honest with you, I have no clue either. But I get the feeling that’s one of those things that aren’t any of our business. So we just have to accept that Taylor believes this is what’s best for her hive.” Twilight stated before turning and opening the door.

They both left the hotel and headed for the library.

They spent the next several hours looking through books, trying to find something that could help. Some answer to preventing the Civil War.

The sun began to set and day turned to night. The library closed and they had to head back to the hotel for the night.

They returned the next morning. And the next.

Three days passed with minimal progress on their front. Taylor had already gathered a bunch of information and was moving on to trying to find information and evidence to black mail her potential opposition with.

Twilight slammed the book on Griffon customs she’d been reading shut and groaned in stress and frustration as she set it off to the side. That was the twelfth book today and it contained absolutely nothing of any use whatsoever. It said nothing of how the first king united Griffonstone, only that the Idol of Boreas is what brought them all together. Just like the last hundred or so she and Rainbow Dash had read through. Mostly Twilight. She was good at speed reading whereas Rainbow Dash wasn’t and she very quickly grew bored reading about griffon customs and history. So Twilight was doing most of the work.

“Come on. Give it up, Twi. At this point it's pretty obvious that books aren’t going to help.” Rainbow stated.

“I want to disagree but we’ve read pretty much every book on griffon history and culture in this place… Ugh…” Twilight buried her face in her forelegs for a moment before sitting back up and holding her head between her hooves. Stress and worry clear on her face. “I don’t know what else to do! If we don’t figure something out soon…” She shook her head. “Rainbow, we have to find a solution! We can’t just let… You know…” Twilight said, trying to avoid mentioning Taylor or her plans in public like this.

Rainbow sighed and looked around. The library was mostly empty save for the librarian who was currently asleep at the front desk and a couple of other griffons. “It doesn’t look like anyone’s listening. As long as we stay quiet, we should be okay to talk here… So these books are obviously a waste of time. So what now? We can ask for a bit more time if we need it. But we need to come up with something. Some strategy for how to approach this problem to make it easier to figure out.”

Twilight shook her head. “I don’t know… I’m genuinely at a loss… I wish we could just send a letter to Celestia or something! But no… We can’t… I do have a letter to Queen Amore already pre-written to fall back on if nothing else. It's about several pages long and explains the whole situation in detail. But we’d need to ask first before sending it and who knows how long it’ll take to get there and for her response to get back to us. Or if Amore will even be able to help us at all.”

“When did you find the time to do that?” Rainbow asked, confused.

“The past few nights while you were asleep. The first night we arrived I couldn’t sleep because I was stressed that we hadn’t found a solution. So I stayed up and started working on it. And have been working on it since. I’ve read it, re-read it, and rewritten a few pages several times to make it as clear and concise as possible to make sure there’s no confusion if we do have to send it off.” Twilight stated.

“Twilight… Have you slept at all these past few days?” Rainbow asked, genuinely concerned.

Twilight nodded. “Not much, but yeah. I’m pretty sure I’ve been able to get about at least four hours of sleep every night. So I’m tired but it's not as bad as it could be. I can’t afford to exhaust myself. I won’t be able to think as efficiently and it’ll only make things harder…”

“You do realize, I could probably just fly over to the Crystal Empire and back faster than that letter could get there. I could totally explain everything to Queen Amore. You didn’t need to write all of that.” Rainbow stated.

“You probably could, but writing down my thoughts helped. If I hadn’t, I’d have been worrying about it all night and wouldn’t have been able to get any sleep at all.” Twilight stated.

Rainbow sighed. “Fair enough, I guess…”

“Alright, let’s try to break this down. The issue is the possibility of a war. Why? Why will a war break out if this happens? What are the reasons for it? If we can find the reasons, maybe we can find a solution.” Twilight asked, still trying to be careful about what they said in public even if they were whispering and no one was listening.

“You know why. Because they’re all jerks. And super greedy too. They want power and money.” Rainbow stated.

“That’s… unfortunately true, it seems… I don’t like it but denying reality isn’t going to help us right now… That said, maybe there’s more to it? The terms they agreed to suggest they’d accept whoever got the item. Maybe part of the issue might be legitimacy? Maybe… Hopefully… Because if legitimacy is an issue rather than just pure greed maybe we can find a solution. I know your experience is limited but it's still more experience than I have. So what do you think? Does my hypothesis make sense?” Twilight asked.

Rainbow Dash shrugged. “I dunno. Maybe? I know the ‘pony’ I used to be friends with would probably be upset if we made an agreement and some unrelated pony swooped in, claimed the prize, and gave it to somepony else who didn’t earn it then expected us to just accept it. I would be too, honestly.”

“Right, I see your point. That would be pretty upsetting… So, how do we circumvent that? She has to be the one. Which means she’d have to give it to somepony… I don’t see a way around that… Rainbow, if you and your friend were having a contest to get something that was impossible to reach, neither of you could get even close no matter how hard you tried it was just legitimately impossible, and somepony else got it for you, what would you do?” Twilight asked.

“Hm… We’d settle it with a race. Have that pony put the thing somewhere really far away with an obstacle course to reach it, and we’d see who could get to it first. That way raw speed wouldn’t be enough. You’d have to dodge through a bunch of stuff so too much speed could be a problem. That way it’d be fair since, of course, I’m totally faster than her. And it would still be a challenge to get to it.” Rainbow stated confidently.

“A race…” Twilight said, thinking to herself. That was a very “Rainbow Dash” answer, but maybe it could work? If Taylor grabbed the Idol of Boreas and announced she was going to make a contest to see who could get it first, it would be like an extension of the original agreement rather than Taylor just installing a ruler she had personally chosen. Maybe the griffons would be more receptive to it and they could avoid a civil war!

Sure, it wasn’t perfect. There was still the possibility that pure greed would lead to a civil war, at which point Taylor would step in and it would all be for nothing. But it was the closest thing they had to a solution right now. So they may as well run it by her to see what she thought.

“It could work… That’s definitely something we’ll keep in mind! We’ll have to ask our friend later. For now, let’s keep thinking. If it is pure greed, how do we deal with that? Maybe we could… pay them…?” Twilight muttered uncertainly.

Rainbow rolled her eyes. “Twi, I don’t think we have nearly enough bits for that, considering what’s on the line.”

They continued talking for a while but ultimately came up with nothing else of note. Their best idea was the contest.

Later that night Twilight teleported herself and Rainbow into Taylor’s room.

It was midnight and I just got back from my most recent round of investigations. I was currently in my human form going over some of the evidence I collected when Twilight and Rainbow teleported in.

I looked up from a page I was reading through. “Oh, hey. Just going over some evidence I collected today. Apparently Lord Silvertalon has his claws in organized crime. Drug trafficking and protection money rackets fraudulently disguised as ‘tax collection’, mainly. Not as bad as I expected, relatively speaking, but it’s something. He’s actually stupid enough to keep detailed physical records of everything. Presumably so he can keep track of his finances so none of his children, grand kids, or employees who’re in on it can easily embezzle money from his operation. I have enough evidence to have him and his kids thrown in prison for a very long time.”

“I see… Well that’s good, I guess?” Twilight asked uncertainly.

“It means I have enough material to blackmail him into compliance or legally get him thrown in prison if he decides not to comply and becomes a problem. So, yeah. It’s good. He’s one of the older nobles whose family still has quite a bit of support and influence. Removing him from the picture will be a pretty big blow to the opposition. Not crippling, there are others who’re more subtle who are just as if not more important than him. But still pretty big since he’s pretty rich and taking him out would mean he can’t help bankroll the war.” I stated, rolling the page up and stuffing it in the chest at the foot of my bed. “So, what’s up? I assume you’re here for a reason.”

“We finally came up with an idea we want to run by you. There’s nothing in any of the books we went through that can help, unfortunately, but we came up with a hypothesis. If we’re correct then the issue isn’t just the fact Griffons are greedy. It’s also a problem of legitimacy. The original agreement was that ‘Whosoever successfully retrieves the Idol of Boreas shall become the next ruler of Griffonstone’. Or something along those lines. I’m paraphrasing. If you get the Idol and just give it to somepony, the griffons will see it as illegitimate because that Griffon didn’t retrieve it themself.” Twilight explained.

I nodded. “I suppose. Ambassador Gruff said something pretty similar when I talked to him about it. What of it? I have to be the one to get the Idol. There’s no way around that. So what are you getting at?”

“We’re going to have a race!” Rainbow Dash declared.

I stared at the two of them for a moment. “A race…”

“Yeah! It’ll totally work! As long as the Griffons aren’t complete jerks anyway. This way, they won’t be able to say that whoever gets the Idol didn’t really earn it! They’ll have still gotten the Idol on their own, you’ll have just made it possible to reach in the first place.” Rainbow explained.

I frowned. “There’s a problem with this idea. Unless we rig it somehow for whoever I choose, there’s no guarantee whoever wins will agree to give me the support I need after they claim the Idol and become King. That’s part of the point of choosing who I give the Idol to in the first place. So I can negotiate terms with them beforehand and get them to sign an agreement.”

“We can make that part of the entry requirements. To enter the contest they have to sign a contract stating they’ll provide you military aid once they’re on the throne.” Twilight stated.

I raised a hand to my chin in thought. “I’m not sure this will stop a civil war from breaking out like you hope, the Griffons are insanely greedy. Plus there’s no guarantee whoever wins will be good for the Kingdom. Which will be a problem for me if whoever wins does such a horrible job they incite a revolution or a coup against them and get overthrown in a year. Then the contract will be void and I’ll be screwed. So I’d prefer to select my candidates directly. I can’t do that in a contest where anyone can enter. I already have a couple griffons in mind for who I’d want to install.”

Twilight sighed. “I’ll admit, I can’t guarantee they won’t try to start a civil war regardless… But historically the Idol of Boreas already united the Griffons and made Griffonstone the most prosperous kingdom in the world once. I’m willing to bet that if acquired through a fair contest, it can do it again. As for being a good ruler, we can build the contest around challenges specifically designed to weed out any griffons who have negative qualities for a king or queen. We can turn excessive greed into a disadvantage. In fact, I already have a few ideas for that.”

She explained her plans to me.

I sighed. "I'm still skeptical about all of this, I doubt it'll work as well as you're thinking, but fine. I told you two if you came up with a non-violent solution, I'd give it a chance. I'm not about to go back on my word. And if it fails, I can always fall back on my original plan. So it's not like I'm losing anything by giving this idea a chance. Alright, let's do this. How do we start?"

Once everything was prepared or could be set up relatively easily, it was finally time to kick everything off.

Leaving Twilight and Rainbow Dash at the hotel, I approached the Abysmal Abyss in my changeling form and looked down into the canyon. The Idol was right there. All I had to do was go down and get it.

I looked around and saw several griffons looking at me curiously. Most likely because I was a changeling and was thus a curious sight here in Griffonstone, more than anything.

Some I sensed strange emotions from that made me suspect they might be changeling spies. I sensed it every time I went out in my Changeling form. They would even follow me, until I transformed into something they couldn't keep track of and flew away. But I had no solid evidence so I couldn't act on it without causing a diplomatic incident, unfortunately.

For now, I ignored them. I then proceeded to enter the canyon and walk down the wall. For me it was almost as easy as climbing up a ladder. Except I was going down instead of up which was a rather odd experience since gravity was pulling at me from the opposite direction.

The wind got more and more intense the further down I went. I could definitely see why getting down here was such a huge problem. I could tell it would be impossible to fly in this without being caught by the wind and completely losing all control. I wondered how many griffons had died from trying to fly down and grab the Idol only to be smashed against the walls of the canyon and fall to their deaths.

The further down I went the stronger the wind became. It was getting to the point I was having trouble keeping my wings pressed down against my back and it was getting harder and harder to maintain my footing the further down I went, even with my ability to stick to walls like a bug. I wished I could morph individual parts of my body so I could hide my wings, that way they wouldn't be a problem, but I couldn't. So, instead I had to stop on a ledge, take out a length of star spider silk rope, and tie it around my torso several times to keep my wings pinned to my back. It was uncomfortable but at least the wind wasn't going to blow them open and slam me against the rocks. It also meant I wouldn't be able to save myself if I started falling to my death, but with the wind as hard as it was I wouldn't have been able to regardless.

I continued down and was tempted to morph into a different form entirely, one that could resist the wind easier like a gecko. But I still had to bring the Idol of Boreas back up with me. I couldn't do that in any of the forms I knew the anatomy of, considering they were mostly animals from Earth and none of them were big enough to carry a heavy solid gold artifact up a wall while the wind was blowing the thing around. There was probably a creature from this world that could do it, but I didn't know them off the top of my head. So I had to press onwards as I was. Hard and increasingly dangerous as it was.

I slipped and nearly fell, almost blown clean off the wall of the canyon. But I just barely managed to catch myself at the last second. My heart was now pounding hard in my chest as adrenaline started pumping through my veins. I hadn't expected this to be quite this dangerous. How many griffons had tried to use climbing gear and fallen to their deaths because of this wind? How hard was it even blowing?! Was this canyon cursed or was this somehow a genuinely natural phenomenon? I didn't know. I didn't have time to think about it. I tried to get low and brace myself against the wind as I kept going.

Eventually I reached the ledge the Idol was sitting on. Not taking any chances, I grabbed it with my telekinesis before walking back up to the top. The journey back up was just as hard as the journey down. But at least it got easier the further up I went as the wind stopped blowing as hard near the top.

Once I was out of the Abyss with the Idol in my grasp I could immediately sense the shock and surprise of every griffon who saw me. I held up the Idol a bit higher so everyone could get a good look at it.

Continuing to hold it up, I walked through Griffonstone taking flyers out of my saddlebags and taping them to walls.

“Queen Weaver has an important announcement. Come to the old Castle at Noon and have the chance to win the Idol of Boreas and become the next King or Queen of Griffonstone.” The fliers read, with pictures of the Idol of Boreas drawn by Twilight in the middle of the page.

As I walked through Griffonstone holding up the Idol and taping fliers, more and more griffons saw me and thus more and more read my fliers. I also held up crossbow bolts around me with my telekinesis the whole time. The threat was obvious, and it seemed to ward off anyone who might have otherwise thought of trying to attack me to get the Idol. I did sense the emotions of a few who I could tell very obviously wanted to, but they were all too intimidated by the prospect of death or grievous injury to try.

When I ran out of fliers, I headed to the front of the castle and waited. Slowly griffons began to gather.

I looked at a cheap pocket watch I’d bought and kept track of the time. As soon as the clock hit twelve, I closed the pocket watch and stuffed it back in my saddle bag. Looking out I saw the crowd had grown quite large.

I held up the Idol of Boreas and raised my voice so everyone could hear me. “It’s noon, so I will be starting my announcement now! If anyone isn’t already here to listen, too bad! This is going to be short! I, Queen Weaver, have retrieved the Idol of Boreas from the Abysmal Abyss, so a new King or Queen of Griffonstone may be crowned! To that end, I am announcing a contest, in which the prize is the Idol itself and becoming the next ruler of Griffonstone!”

I could sense the growing buzz of excitement among the gathered griffons, along with a plethora of other emotions. Greed was thick in the air.

I continued. “This contest will be taking place in two weeks from today! You have until then to train and prepare! I will be posting fliers with the details of the contest soon! These fliers will have details on the events and courses so you will know how to prepare! However, this isn’t free! To enter the contest, you must sign a contract agreeing to certain terms! Chief among them being a military agreement and officially allying with me and my hive for my role in making this possible! Copies of this contract will be available for everyone to read through here at this castle, at the City Hall, in the Town Square, and on the wall of the public Library! You may read through them at your leisure so you may be fully aware of my terms before signing anything! There will be a booth where you can sign up for the contest here, in front of the castle! Everything I said in this announcement will be on the fliers I will be putting up! So if anyone missed my announcement, they will still be informed!"

Twilight had prepared a glass box enchanted with protective spells in advance. Only a creature with a similar level of knowledge of magic to Twilight would be able to get inside. I stepped aside so everyone could get a good look. "Until the competition, the Idol of Boreas will remain within this container for everyone to see! It's enchanted so only I can open or move it! If the enchantment is undone or the box is somehow broken, I will immediately be teleported to it and I will personally deal with the prospective thief myself! So if you have any skepticism, you're welcome to come see the Idol for yourself but I would advise against trying to take it before the contest!"

I opened the glass container and set the Idol inside. I would have preferred to hide it somewhere but Twilight told me that was a bad idea. The Idol leaving the Griffons' sight would give room for them to declare it a fake and that the contest was fraudulent. So she assured me this way was better and would be adequate for keeping the Idol safe just until the contest took place. I hated this. I hated leaving it out in the open like this because it made me paranoid someone was going to try and steal it. So I had insisted on the teleportation enchantment. Even with that in place I still wasn't happy, but I was just going to have to suck it up and get over it.

I looked back at the crowed. "I will not be taking any questions at this time! I may decide to take questions during a future press conference or something similar! That's all for now!"

With my announcement done and the Idol safe, I transformed into a dragonfly and flew away.

I was going to be busy for the next few weeks, so I needed to get started right away.

Author's Note

I feel like her retrieving the Idol and her announcement could have been handled better, but I don't really know how.

Anyway, I'm kind of thinking I want to have Rainbow Dash and Gilda make up. But I'm not sure if that's going to be possible right now. Maybe something happens while Gilda's training for the contest or something? Maybe I should have Pinkie Pie come to Griffonstone after hearing the news or something so she could be part of it too? I don't know. Just a thought.

Anyway, I'm open to any and all questions comments and criticism!

Edit: I've updated the story so instead of teleporting the Idol away at the end, Twilight made an enchanted box in advance. That way the Griffons can't cry foul and say it's a fake and the contest is fraudulent.